Never too late

More than half a century after he was driven into committing suicide, UK PM Gordon Brown has apologized for the way Alan Turing was persecuted by the British government. They victimized the man who was instrumental in the defeat of the Nazis in WWII, and who made significant contributions to the field of computer science, all because he was gay. He was forced to undergo chemical castration, and committed suicide some time later.

Last year, while writing about morality, I had said-

Homosexuality is another controversial issue and there are many countries in the world (including India) where the practice is outlawed through a technicality – making “unnatural sex” illegal. No distinction is made between sodomy and rape. And society gains a tool to target “different” people. The Islamic theocracy that is Iran hangs gay people. While Iran is an extreme case, I don’t think there are many countries in the world who have not, at some point of time or the other, indulged in “legal discrimination” (discrimination by government, as opposed to by private parties – there is a huge difference in these two concepts and unfortunately, a lot of liberals either don’t understand this or simply don’t want to) against homosexuals.

British mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing was probably one of morality’s greatest victims. Turing was the one who, in trying to tackle Godel’s undecidability question, came up with a design for what we now call computers; and the one who cracked the German Enigma cipher machine during the Second World War. In The Code Book, Simon Singh quotes a Bletchley Park veteran – “Fortunately the (military) authorities did not know that Turing was a homosexual. Otherwise we would have lost the war.” But the government did come to know of it later on. And it forced him to undergo hormone treatment that made him impotent. This persecution resulted in his committing suicide at the age of 42. The British rewarded his contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany with death.

There are different kinds of apologies. Some are heart-felt, others are tactical, still others are symbolic; some are costly, others cheap. It takes great courage to apologize for a mistake, which is akin to taking a stand, when the cost of the apology is greatest. In 2009, and in Britain, part of Western civilization where homophobia is out of fashion, apologizing for having treated Turing in a particular way doesn’t cost much. But it is important because it recognizes, even if it cannot correct it, a historic wrong. It would have been better if those crusaders of morality who destroyed the lives of millions based on their perverted sense of morality and “justice” had applied their minds to the issue and not indulged in the persecution of “different” people.

If one looks at it from an Indian perspective, the contrast is blindingly apparent. A civilization that lacks any sense of history and that justifies anything and everything based on tradition is yet to come to terms with homosexuality. That explains the government being “undecided” on the question, and the religious orthodoxy’s anger at the SC judgment. The British, for all their flaws and stupidities, past and present, have the decency to apologize for what they did. We, having no sense of shame, will behave as if nothing is amiss.

Dogma

In the 2003 film “The Life of David Gale” Kevin Spacey plays a philosophy professor and anti-death penalty crusader who finds himself on death row, and is executed. The twist in the tale is that though he is innocent, the whole affair, resulting in the execution of an innocent man, is planned by Spacey and his colleague and he leaves behind the proof of his innocence, proof that the system failed.

This fear, of putting an innocent man to death, has always troubled those with a conscience—it has always been one of the greatest arguments against the penalty. And New Yorker, in a recent story, asks if Texas finally did it. Looking at the way the justice and law enforcement systems work in many countries, it would seem that justice is the last thing they are interested in. From cops who act like goons, to judges who behave and talk like bureaucrats, to elected representatives who pander to public opinion and special interests who depend on a bloated justice system, justice isn’t something many people are interested in.

In the case in question, it seems that the investigators who helped execute the man relied on “intuition” rather than science. The paragraph before last-

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”

The last phrase is based on a statement by a former Justice of the US Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, who had noted that the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.” A current Justice doesn’t think that however.

The anger of those who reviewed the case, nine so far, all with similar conclusions, is valid. Both Beyler, recently, and Hurst in ’04, dismiss the techniques used, calling them “junk science” etc. It isn’t surprising though that many people use such techniques and simply “believe” in them. Humans have shown time and again that they are more likely to believe in fairy tales than facts.

Pragmatism as a philosophy isn’t worth much. But pragmatist philosopher Sidney Hook did say one thing—”What cannot be tested in action is dogma.” Make of it what you will.

His idea of justice

Recently, the US Supreme Court passed an order for an “innocence hearing” to be held in the case of a man convicted of murder after doubts arose over his guilt. But a couple of judges dissented. Among them is Scalia. And this is his defense-

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent.

Dropping the two negatives, it means that the Court is not concerned with “actual” innocence, only with “legal” innocence. Apparently, he would follow anything written in the Constitution as long as it is not against his religion (he’s a Catholic) in which case he would resign. The thought that a proper Constitution is merely the written form of a particular idea of justice and rights, and that its the idea that must be defended probably never crossed his mind.

The Goddess of Justice is popularly depicted wearing a blindfold and holding a measuring scale in one hand. The blindfold is meant to represent impartiality, not the refusal to see facts. Which is what “Justice” Scalia would be doing if he allowed an innocent man to die when fully aware of the fact of his innocence.

Sen and Banerjee

I would have written about Amartya Sen’s interview and book, and Mamata Banerjee’s stand on land acquisition earlier but couldn’t, for some reason. In short, Sen shouldn’t be deciding who gets the flute, and Banerjee is bang on target when she says the government should have no role to play when it comes to the acquisition of land.

On Sen, John Rawls credits him in the preface to his 1971 treatise on political philosophy, “A Theory of Justice.” Referring to Sen’s book “Collective Choice and Social Welfare,” Rawls writes-

I should also like to thank A. K. Sen for his searching discussion and criticisms of the theory of justice. These have enabled me to improve the presentation at various places. His book will prove indispensable to philosophers who wish to study the more formal theory of social choice as economists think of it. At the same time, the philosophical problems receive careful treatment.

His ideology is pretty clear. He is a welfare statist.

On Banerjee, she isn’t a capitalist, but she does seem to see through the statist scam, at least when it comes to land acquisition. The most infuriating item of them all was the Times of India edit which called Banerjee’s position “idealistic.” There was a time when it wanted to be idealistic. But then Banerjee should have the same respect for all property. The farmer in Singur, and Vijay Mallya (this was during Laloo-raj), both deserve the same protection.

I agree with everything Sauvik writes. On Sen, and on Mamata.

Playing God

There’s nothing wrong in that, but not this way-

THE link between success and luck is stronger than many people think.

Analysis of this connection provides a useful framework for weighing the issues raised around the country at recent “tea parties,” where orators in high dudgeon bemoaned their “crippling” tax burdens…

Contrary to what many parents tell their children, talent and hard work are neither necessary nor sufficient for economic success…

Although people are often quick to ascribe their own success to skill and hard work, even those qualities entail heavy elements of luck. Debate continues about the degree to which personal traits are attributable to environmental and genetic factors. But whatever the true weights of each, these factors in combination explain nearly everything. People born with good genes and raised in nurturing families can claim little moral credit for their talent and industriousness. They were just lucky. And they are vastly more likely to succeed than people born without talent and raised in unsupportive environments…

There has never been a shortage of talented people willing to work hard for success — even in countries with top rates much higher than 50 percent. And the president’s proposal would not cause such a shortage in 2010.

It would, however, promote more efficient provision of public services, in much the same way that contingent fee contracts often promote more efficient provision of services in the private sector. For example, when lawyers are willing to waive fees unless their client wins, wrongfully injured accident victims often gain legal representation they couldn’t otherwise afford. Similarly, when government levies higher tax rates on the wealthy, we can provide public services that the wealthy and others greatly value but that would otherwise be beyond reach. Under such a tax system, the heavier tax bill becomes payable only if we’re lucky enough to end up among life’s biggest winners.

Financially successful tax protesters seem blissfully unaware of how incredibly fortunate they are…

Robert Frank, here, is trying to be “fair,” just like Rawls, and is correcting God’s innumerable “mistakes.” I wonder if he would also suggest that there be fairness in the distribution of eyes and kidneys? Prepare a registry of all the people in the world and pluck an eye and kidney from X and give it to Y because Y was unlucky enough to be born without them, or lose them in an accident? Luck! I do know that people can be “unlucky” – the most deserving people may not always be rewarded, but that’s no justification for practicing moral cannibalism – egalitarianism. Maybe Frank is writing to inflate the egos of those who believe that hard work is irrelevant and “luck” is all that matters. They can then go and stand up to a Gates or Tendulkar and say – you were lucky! Now hand over the booty!

Egalitarianism is a scourge, and Rawls is one of its most influential purveyors. The libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick took him on in his Anarchy, State and Utopia. But Ayn Rand didn’t bother. She did this instead-

Ayn Rand believed that philosophical ideas shape a society’s culture and politics. “The battle of philosophers is a battle for man’s mind,” she said. “If you do not understand their theories, you are vulnerable to the worst among them”. Though Rand had little regard for contemporary academic philosophers, she did write several articles about the discipline, commenting on philosophers’ methods as well as on their philosophical ideas.

In 1971, Harvard philosopher John Rawls published his Theory of Justice to great acclaim, and Rand responded in “An Untitled Letter.” Rawls’s book was notable for the baldness with which he stated his egalitarian principle of justice: that people may reap the benefits of their ability and effort only on terms that also benefit the least able. Rand of course denounced the altruist and egalitarian character of the principle, which she saw as a rationalization for envy—”the hatred of the good for being good.”

In her essay, Rand admitted that she had not read and did not intend to read Rawls’s book and declared that she should therefore be understood as commenting only on the positions ascribed to Rawls in Marshall Cohen’s lengthy review in the Sunday New York Times. Critics have attacked Rand for adopting that approach to the work, and it is a dubious technique even when made explicit. At the same time, however, critics of Rand have not acknowledged that she was nonetheless able to describe, precisely and essentially, Rawls’s method of argument. Nor have they acknowledged, though it is now a generation later, how presciently Rand was able to foresee the book’s future—drawing on nothing but a book review and her own profound understanding of the way bad ideas spread:

Kant originated the technique required to sell irrational notions to the men of a skeptical, cynical age who have formally rejected mysticism without grasping the rudiments of rationality. The technique is as follows: if you want to propagate an outrageously evil idea (based on traditionally accepted doctrines), your conclusion must be brazenly clear, but your proof unintelligible. Your proof must be so tangled a mess that it will paralyze a reader’s critical faculty—a mess of evasions, equivocations, obfuscations, circumlocutions, non sequiturs, endless sentences leading nowhere, irrelevant side issues, clauses, sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, a meticulously lengthy proving of the obvious, and big chunks of the arbitrary thrown in as self-evident, erudite references to sciences, to pseudo-sciences, to the never-to-be-sciences, to the untraceable and the unprovable—all of it resting on a zero: the absence of definitions. I offer in evidence The Critique of Pure Reason….

Within a few years of the book’s publication, commentators will begin to fill libraries with works analyzing, “clarifying” and interpreting its mysteries. Their notions will spread all over the academic map,….

Within a generation, the number of commentaries will have grown to such proportions that the original book will be accepted as a subject of philosophical specialization, requiring a lifetime of study—and any refutation of the book’s theory will be ignored or rejected, if unaccompanied by a full discussion of the theories of all the commentators, a task which no one will be able to undertake.

Which is exactly what has happened with A Theory of Justice.

Anyone who advocates egalitarianism cannot be “good.” You don’t have to commit murder to become “evil.” Promoting wholesale theft and slavery in the name of “justice” and “fairness” is good enough.

Edit: Since Frank’s article draws on Gladwell’s recent book, its interesting to note the “usual suspect” writing something different on it-

Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.

Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.

It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.

Brooks does recognize Gladwell’s position as a form of determinism and actually calls it “pleasantly egalitarian” but to give him credit, he does stay away from Frank’s stupid position.

Further, a comment on an Amazon review of the book says- “John Rawls, philosopher and a believer in luck and the ‘accidents of birth’, would be thrilled! ” Its a matter of patterns – different people writing different books with the same outcome in mind. That’s where the similarities lie.